Major international organizations classify countries by different factors. One criterion that is often used is gross national income (GNI) per capita – the dollar value of a country’s final income in a year, divided by its population

Governance, Regulation & Compliance

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China’s recent efforts to make it easier for global investors to access its enormous stock markets in Shanghai and Shenzhen were not enough to persuade MSCI to include these “China A shares” in its widely followed Emerging Markets Index just yet.

Trends | Shadow Banking
Renaud Laplanche, Lending Club’s founder, chief executive and public face, resigned abruptly in mid-May. His resignation casts a pall over not only the peer-to-peer lender that claims to be the world’s largest online marketplace connecting borrowers and investors, but also the shadow banking industry as a whole.

Management | Corruption
At the anticorruption summit held in London last month, world leaders pledged to fight tax dodging, boost transparency and redouble efforts to confiscate and repatriate stolen assets to many of the world’s poorest countries.

Capital Markets | Sovereign Risk
Low energy and commodity prices and a global economy stuck in low gear have provoked a surge in sovereign ratings downgrades in the first three months of this year. And rating agencies anticipate another wave of downgrades if a wider global economic slowdown materializes.

Singapore has overtaken Hong Kong as Asia’s top financial center and now ranks third globally behind London and New York. This is the key takeaway from the latest Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI), a ranking by British commercial think-tank Z/Yen Group.

Tax Reporting & Compliance
The OECD’s “Base Erosion and Profit Shifting” principles are being incorporated into tax laws in some nations, requiring more transparency from corporate treasury departments.

Bank of China, the fourth-largest bank in the world, has been an ener-getic leader in expanding overseas. In an interview with Global Finance, Chen Siqing, the bank’s president, spoke about internationalization efforts and the importance of overseas growth.